1. Field of the Invention
The object of the present invention, as set forth in the declarations of the following descriptive report, consists in a machine for the control and boarding of stockings and tights.
This kind of machine is designed to carry out an automatic cyclical treatment on stockings and tights, following their manufacture on the corresponding legger machines. The aim of this boarding treatment is the fixing of the final shape and dimensions of the stockings, which cannot be marketed as they are when they leave the manufacturing machines, due to their crumpled and not very aesthetic appearance.
The boarding process consists in exposing the manufactured stockings to the action of steam for a specific period of time, these being mounted on forms whose shape they acquire during the steaming process. The stockings then go through a drying phase in which the excess humidity acquired during the steaming is eliminated.
The machine which is described below includes a rotating circular transfer type base for carrying the forms, which can be of a traditional fixed type, that is to say straight, fixed with foot or articulated foot type, and a series of functional stations through which these forms successively pass, the stockings being subjected to different operations from the loading and control area to the unloading area.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the current state of the technique machines for boarding stockings are known, but they have drawbacks centred on the loading and drying area.
The usual machines have loading means formed by a loading support in which the stocking is placed by the operator, a working support commonly called a form, where the stocking is positioned in order for it to be subjected to the different operations of the process, and a transporting support which collects the stocking from the loading support and deposits it in the form or working support.
Two types of form are currently used, depending on the kind of machine with which the work is being done. In both cases they are fixed forms with no movement. On the one hand there are the straight forms, without foot, which are used in machines with automatic loading and unloading, and on the other hand the fixed forms with foot, which are used in machines with manual loading and unloading, as the inclination of the foot prevents the efficient use of loading and unloading automatisms.
As far as the drying area is concerned, the existing machines currently have a kiln into which hot air is injected to dry the stockings. These kilns present a problem consisting in the fact that the recirculation of air in their interior is carried out in accordance with flows which are even at any point in the kiln, while the degree of humidity supported by the air contained is not equal at any point in its interior, it being maximum at the inlet of the kiln and minimum at the outlet.